1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a game system that correlates games played on cellular phones with games played on game machines installed in amusement arcades, as well as a game system that correlates game machines played with tokens with the other types of game machines.
2. Description of the Related Art
An example of a game machine installed in an amusement arcade and played with tokens is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid Open Publication No. 10-108977. To play this sort of game machine, one must visit the amusement arcade where the game machine is installed.
On the other hand, in recent years, one can employ a mobile communication terminal such as a cellular phone to receive game content and play a game on the cellular phone based on the received game content without visiting an amusement arcade.
The cellular phone, however, is very small compared with an arcade game machine, and therefore, may only serve for temporary enjoyment of a game and no replacement for the taste of an arcade game.
Accordingly, a person who plays a game on a cellular phone may want to visit an amusement arcade and play arcade games. In this case, correlating games played on cellular phones with games played on arcade game machines allows cellular-phone-game players to easily play arcade game machines.
Presently, there is no technique to correlate cellular-phone games with arcade games. There is no facility for a person who plays games on a cellular phone to make him or her easily play games on arcade game machines.
There is another problem concerning arcade games. A game machine installed in an amusement arcade and played with tokens (including medals, coins, and the like) reimburses more tokens than inserted tokens if the player wins a game played on the game machine. If the reimbursed tokens are usable for other types of game machines that are not based on tokens installed in the amusement arcade, it will be convenient for the player. There is, however, no compatibility between the token-based game machines and the non-token-based game machines, to force inconvenience to players.